pad controllers | Digital DJ Tips

September 17th, 2012 Reviews

Review & Video: QuNeo 3D Multitouch Pad Controller

by Phil Morse

With tactile pads, sliders, rotary sensors and switches, the touch-sensitive QuNeo offers a depth of Midi control never before seen in such a small, light controller.

Want a controller with a difference? They don’t get much more different than the QuNeo 3D Multitouch Pad Controller. The same size as an iPad and weighing just 14oz, this beautifully made Midi controller can give you a wide degree hardware control over your DJ software on your laptop or iPad (via USB or OSC), with LED feedback that’s so good it makes the unit all but irresistible.

The QuNeo comes complete with out-of-the-box mappings for Traktor, Serato Scratch Live, Mixxx and Ableton Live (as well as drum machine, sampler and synthesiser software), but you won’t be surprised to hear that it has its own editor for coming up with your own mappings too.

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January 5th, 2012 News & Opinion

Richie Hawtin & Livid Announce CNTRL-R Performance Surface

by Phil Morse

Take a look at this. This video surfaced in the last day on Livid’s YouTube channel, and shows the CNTRL-R, a button-fest of a controller mapped to Traktor Pro 2.

The video is intriguing because the controller is patently being used to about 1% of its potential, but with all those controls there’s obviously a lot of potential in this thing. It certainly takes our prediction for 2012 of more controllers without jogwheels and runs with it!

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August 17th, 2011 Training

Diary of A Novice Midi Mapper, Part 1 – Getting Started

by SmiTTTen

The Midi Fighter is one of the options available to DJs wanting to add more buttons to better control aspects of their DJ software.

If you are going to really take control of your music and deliver a DJ set that’s entirely unique, you are going to want to access all the capabilities of your chosen digital mixing platform provides – at least, that was my thinking when I decided to roll my sleeves up and have a go myself, and write a series of piece on my experiences of Midi mapping.

Over the next few articles in this series, I will share my trials, successes and failures as a semi-proficient DJ looking to unravel those black arts of audio plumbing that separate the digital Gods from people like me.

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July 1st, 2011 Reviews

Review: The Vestax PAD-One USB Midi Controller

by Phil Morse

The Vestax PAD-One: A slimline, solid pad controller aimed squarely at DJs.

One obvious addition to your DJ set-up is a pad controller of some kind. By “pad” I mean pads or buttons – anything you can hit, basically, in order to control cue points, looping, effects, samples, scenes and so on in a more expressive way than by pressing limited, cramped little buttons on your DJ controller.

Such controllers come in all shapes and sizes, from the innovative little Dicers, to the boutique Midi Fighter, to all singin’, all dancin’ grids for Ableton like the Launchpad and the Akai APC series. But they all offer the same type of function to DJs.

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